Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 43 — page 71: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION square miles of it, the first coastline drifted onto the radar screen. They followed a thousand miles of that, and then found it was actually a river bank. It was a river which made the Amazon look like a trickle, and it came from mountains which dwarfed the Himalayas. Venus, appar- ently, went in for only a few features—but all in a big way. Only one thing was certain about the nature of the ground—it was pretty rough. But way up the river, among the mountains, was an iso- lated plateau. That was the goal of the minnow. And it nearly missed it. On the screen the error hardly showed at all. The bright dot which was the minnow, drifted momentarily over the river itself, wavered, then started back and became motionless on the verge. “A nice landing,’ com- mented the skipper. Which shows that, at a distance of a few hundred miles, near- 70 disaster looks nothing very important. He pressed his mike button. “Hello, Raikes —everybody happy?” No answer. He couldn’t even hear the carrier wave of the minnow’s radio. The radio op. said: “Bet- ter give em a few minutes to settle, sir.” The skipper gave them ten minutes. Then again he in- quired whether the three men in the minnow were happy. If they were, they either dis- dained to answer—or couldn’t answer. Actually, they stopped be- ing happy when the minnow, caught by the strong pre- vailing wind, caused by the planet’s rapid rotation, was carried several hundred yards off course. It had been trying to settle tail-first on the plateau. But on their screen the minnow’s crew saw the plateau seeming to slide side- ways beneath them. Then they had a brief, horrifying view of the river boiling under their jets. conmmiclooks.comn